Tupelo Honey.
| Van MorrisonTupelo Honey.
Tupelo Honey is the fifth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released in October 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. Morrison had written all of the songs on the album in Woodstock, New York, before his move to Marin County, California, except for "You're My Woman", which he wrote during the recording sessions. Recording began at the beginning of the second quarter of 1971 at the Wally Heider Studios, San Francisco. Morrison moved to the Columbia Studios in May 1971 to complete the album. The namesake for the album and its title track is a varietal honey produced from the flowers of the tupelo tree found in the Southeastern United States. The album features various musical genres, most prominently country, but also R&B, soul, folk-rock and blue-eyed soul. The lyrics echo the domestic bliss portrayed on the album cover; they largely describe and celebrate the rural surroundings of Woodstock and Morrison's family life with then-wife Janet "Planet" Rigsbee. Tupelo Honey received most of its success in America; it charted at number 27 on the Billboard charts and in 1977 it was certified gold by the RIAA. It failed to reach any of the European or other world-wide charts. The album yielded two hit singles, the hymn-like title track, as well as the R&B-flavored "Wild Night". The third released single, "(Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball", was less successful and did not enter the Billboard Hot 100. The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics at the time of its release, but Morrison's biographers were less favorable towards it in later years. -WIKIPEDIA
Critic Reviews
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RollingStone
1975 - For Tupelo Honey is not only an album of beautiful themes, dazzling musical motifs, and exquisite performances. It is an album that was conceived and delivered by a very proud man.
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BBC
2008 - It's a mellow stew, mostly recorded live and guaranteed to brighten up anyone weary of the blues-by-numbers approach he seems to have adopted of late.
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ALL MUSIC
Tupelo Honey is typical of Van Morrison's early-'70s work in both sound and structure.
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Adrian Denning
'Tupelo Honey' album does border on the simple side of things a little - it's always delightful listening.
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UNCUT
2008 - It was warm, open-hearted, perfectly relaxed.
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APHORISTIC ALBUM REVIEWS
as the whole album has a lightweight tone; a collection of mellow -tinged love songs. It’s enjoyable enough, but Tupelo Honey is one of Morrison’s lesser albums from his early catalogue.
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Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews
The last really solid effort of Morrison's classic early period, rendered distinctive by a heavy country-western emphasis and some prominent flute parts.
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OOcities
Ho hum, another year, another really good Van Morrison album.
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The Fat Angel Sings
2017 - remains one of the more popular gateways to Morrison’s daunting body of work, and if it isn’t necessarily the first record named in discussions of his best albums, it’s usually part of the conversation.
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